Grenade!!

[Owly055]

I've never been involved in a "bottle grenade" before. This evening I got to experience one up close and personal. The bottle was a 1L EzCap bottle, a bottle rated with a burst pressure of over 100 PSI. It must have been a defective bottle. I've used these for years, and normally the seal leaks long before there is any risk of bursting...Who knows what happened. I was standing about a foot from the bottle with the bottle at chest level, and my shirt open.... a perfect target. The concussion was shocking, and the energy release was amazing. I ended up with two large pieces of glass embedded in my chest quite deeply, one took a pretty strong tug for me to pull it out. Glass was strewn an amazing distance. I live alone 20 miles from town, so I was fortunate that there was minimal bleeding, as I had to pick my way barefoot down the hall strewn with broken glass to the bathroom and wash the cuts and pick out the pieces, and find a suitable wash cloth to hold over the wound while I called the local hospital ER and told them I was coming and what had happened, then the 20 mile drive in the dark down "deer alley". I got about 20 stitches, one of the wounds was about half an inch deep.

I can't get over how lucky I was.... My face was out of the line of fire, and neither or the two lacerations bled a great deal or I would have needed help to get in to the hospital. And after the explosion I was not so flustered to be unable to pick my way through broken glass to the bathroom without cutting my feet. The clean up took about 2 hours after I got home. Not a fun experience, but an instructive one. The stars aligned in several ways in my favor other than those I mentioned.

You don't ever want to experience that!!

H.W.

 

[pdxal]

Glad you survived it.
If you have any others- better get them contained and be careful with them.
I'll bet that the ER folks found it an interesting mechanism of injury.
Cheers.

 

[Miraculix]

Yes, please take care of the other bottles from the same batch!

 

[Snuffy]

I've never been involved in a "bottle grenade" before. This evening I got to experience one up close and personal. The bottle was a 1L EzCap bottle, a bottle rated with a burst pressure of over 100 PSI. It must have been a defective bottle. I've used these for years, and normally the seal leaks long before there is any risk of bursting...Who knows what happened. I was standing about a foot from the bottle with the bottle at chest level, and my shirt open.... a perfect target. The concussion was shocking, and the energy release was amazing. I ended up with two large pieces of glass embedded in my chest quite deeply, one took a pretty strong tug for me to pull it out. Glass was strewn an amazing distance. I live alone 20 miles from town, so I was fortunate that there was minimal bleeding, as I had to pick my way barefoot down the hall strewn with broken glass to the bathroom and wash the cuts and pick out the pieces, and find a suitable wash cloth to hold over the wound while I called the local hospital ER and told them I was coming and what had happened, then the 20 mile drive in the dark down "deer alley". I got about 20 stitches, one of the wounds was about half an inch deep.

I can't get over how lucky I was.... My face was out of the line of fire, and neither or the two lacerations bled a great deal or I would have needed help to get in to the hospital. And after the explosion I was not so flustered to be unable to pick my way through broken glass to the bathroom without cutting my feet. The clean up took about 2 hours after I got home. Not a fun experience, but an instructive one. The stars aligned in several ways in my favor other than those I mentioned.

You don't ever want to experience that!!

H.W.

Holy crap! That would switch me to dedicated kegger immediately. if luck can even be applied to this situation, it‘s good you weren’t inspecting the clarity or the amount of sediment in the bottle - which I do a lot. I wouldn’t handle the rest without protective gear. Get a handle on that FG, bro! Glad you are ok.
I’ve only had 2 bottles pop and they were both the same type of clamp top that looks like a mini jug from a commercial brew called Jubel. I store bottled beer in plastic totes so mess was minimal and I was not around at the time.

 

[OldDogBrewing]

I always store my "risky" bottles in thick cardboard boxes with more cardboard between each bottle. They aren't really risky as the bottles are supposed to hold more than double the pressure I put in, but just in case

 

[Owly055]

This wasn't beer........... I quit brewing almost 2 years ago and quit drinking entirely about a year ago... My body doesn't like alcohol anymore for some reason. I was so incredibly lucky I find it hard to believe. Not just that it didn't do "serious" harm, but that my insurance was still in force... due to expire in 11 days when I go on medicare. I didn't bleed significantly, so was able to drive a half hour to the hospital. I had just had a tetanus shot with my flu shot this year at my request because it's been over 10 years. I had nothing sharp hit my face, but it scratched the plastic lens on my reading glasses... so they saved my eye or face from damage. I'm blessed with being virtually immune to panic... when I get hurt I get calm and think things through rapidly... thought process goes to warp speed. I carefully picked my way through broken glass in my bare feet without getting cut, examined the damage and determined how serious it was and what to do & what I could do.
My guardian angel was hanging close by when that happened!

 

[passedpawn]

Yikes!

 

[Snuffy]

If it wasn’t beer, what the heck was it? Kombucha?

 

[day_trippr]

[...] My guardian angel was hanging close by when that happened!

Hmm? I would sue your guardian angel for negligence...

Cheers! (glad you survived. whatever caused this, "don't do that" again )

 

[ohioan55]

Had the same thing happen many years ago with a batch of stout. But I had many of the bottles stored in the box for same bottles. I was in the same room when the first one went. The top of the bottle shot up like a missile and the box suddenly had a nice head on it. I called my friend, who I had gave a couple of bottles to, and warned him that one of the bottles had went ballistic. He had placed the 2 (22 oz) bottles on his wine rack. He didn't do anything about moving the bottles after I warned him., and 2 days later, he lost one of the bottles and added a nice brown stain down the wall below the rack. Needless to say, his wife was happy! not

 

[Immocles]

I always store my "risky" bottles in thick cardboard boxes with more cardboard between each bottle. They aren't really risky as the bottles are supposed to hold more than double the pressure I put in, but just in case

glad to know I’m not the only one with a blast chamber of sorts. After having one random hefe blow on my last summer, I stash bottles inside a case, inside a plastic container and put a case of beer on top of it for weight.

 

[ohioan55]

I have no shortage of plastic boxes. My wife is a collector, I think. Seems she buys an endless amount of them thinking they will solve her storage issues, which is not the case. On the bright side, I have some available, and not in use!

 

[OldDogBrewing]

glad to know I’m not the only one with a blast chamber of sorts. After having one random hefe blow on my last summer, I stash bottles inside a case, inside a plastic container and put a case of beer on top of it for weight.

I've never experienced a bottle bomb but it's better to be safe haha I sometimes place a thick rug on top so in case shards get out of the box, they can't fly past the rug

 

[passedpawn]

I had one blow on the counter, about 10' from me. German wheat beer bottles, pretty strong. Scared the bejeesus out of me. Put on leather gloves, chemistry goggles, etc and dumped the whole batch. In fact, I was already dumping them because they were all gushers.

 

[pc_trott]

Did you TNT experts ever figure out why your brews exploded? I'm asking for the purpose of learning from your experiences how not to accidentally off any of the folks I share my beer with. I'm almost positive they'd never forgive me.

 

[OldDogBrewing]

Did you TNT experts ever figure out why your brews exploded? I'm asking for the purpose of learning from your experiences how not to accidentally off any of the folks I share my beer with. I'm almost positive they'd never forgive me.

Because it builds up more pressure than the one the bottle is designed to hold and resist

 

[homebrudoc]

I've had 3 bottles break during capping. Not cool. One left some pieces of glass under my wedding ring and I couldn't wear the ring without it getting inflamed for almost a year. Glad you're okay
homebrudoc

 

[Calder]

I'm intrigued as to what was in the bottle since you quit brewing beer.

I've had 3 bottles let go on me over the past 30 years. Fortunatly I was not present for any of them but had to clean up the mess and pick the glass out of the walls.

Last one was a stout. It had a higher FG than I expected, about 1.016 if I remember correctly. After the bottle blew, I checked the gravity of another bottle (let it go flat) and it had dropped at least 12 points (+ the priming sugar).

That last one didn't do too much damage. In was in with other bottles, but none of them were damaged. I think it helped that I minimize the airspace in my bottles, to just under the capping lip. The less airspace you have in the bottle, the less explosive it will be. A lot of people are using the bottling wands and leave about 1.5 inches of airspace in the bottle. I think that is asking for trouble if you have a bottle bomb. The excess air also increases the deterioration of any hop aroma.

 

[Beermeister32]

That's a really interesting statement regarding filling to the top. I'm interested in this for less oxidation. I've always heard that an inch of headspace is good and safe practice when bottling.

Are there any pneumatic/hydraulic experts out there that might give us a clue if full filling is more inclined to produce bottle bombs, or is it a non-issue?

 

[JAReeves]

I had a batch of stout get infected. Luckily the two bottles that did blow blew the bottom of the bottle off. After I cleaned all the stout off the closet floor, I took the cases out to the driveway and started popping off caps. 40+stout fountains.

 

[Beermeister32]

Here is what I'm finding - full bottle filling leads to bottle bombs - headspace is there to reduce this. How Much Headspace Should You Really Leave When Bottling Beer? | Beer Creation

 

[RolandD]

Here is what I'm finding - full bottle filling leads to bottle bombs - headspace is there to reduce this. How Much Headspace Should You Really Leave When Bottling Beer? | Beer Creation

This makes sense, since water is not compressible. If a bottle is filled all the way to the top, all the over pressure would be immediately transferred to the bottle. Head-space acts as a buffer to absorb the over pressure.

 

[Beermeister32]

Does makes perfect sense - they do say in the above it aids in preventing oxidation, not sure how that would occur, sees like O2 always finds its way in. On IPAs I have hooked up a little picnic tap to my CO2 tank before, flushed the headspace with a shot of C02 before laying the cap on. Seems like it works OK.

 

[corkybstewart]

I've only had one bottle "explode" while I was around. It was in a kitchen cabinet, my wife and I heard a quiet "clink" but couldn't figure out what it was. In the morning there was beer on the counter, and in the cabinet was a bottle with a barely visible crack in it.

 

[dwhite60]

This makes sense, since water is not compressible. If a bottle is filled all the way to the top, all the over pressure would be immediately transferred to the bottle. Head-space acts as a buffer to absorb the over pressure.

I used to work for a valve manufacturer. We built some big and high pressure valves. Everything got filled with water before pressure testing. The less air, the faster the energy dumps if something fails.